


Greatest Hits

by AntigravityDevice



Category: Trainspotting (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 23:31:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13041801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AntigravityDevice/pseuds/AntigravityDevice
Summary: Music is a path winding through Diane's life.





	Greatest Hits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coffeiine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeiine/gifts).



> A big thank you to M. for beta reading!

1996 . One to Another (The Charlatans)

She did her makeup by the fairy lights in her room, enjoying the way the pale pink and green illuminated her dress. Her image in the mirror seemed a hazy, glittery vision, half swallowed by the dark. It was appealing. More than that, it was inspiring. Tonight she would dance, and she would be magical, and then she would disappear. Leave them aching for more. Not that she cared what they thought by that point. But it was nice to think about, anyway.

Her stereo was on, loud enough to make a point to her parents but not so loud they'd be moved to interfere. Diane wanted no distractions. She wanted this, the mixtape of Simple Minds and Suede and The Charlatans, and her image taking shape in the mirror, just the way she wanted it to be.

_Pleased to meet you.  
Hope I never see you._

The club was a disappointment. It nearly always was. The lights were wrong; she couldn't seem to find hers. And you couldn't look like you were trying, ever. So she lit another fag she'd nicked from her dad (at least he had the sense to smoke something worth nicking) and contemplated paying for a drink. An arsehole in a disco shirt showed up with it instead. His mouth was making tedious hi-doll-I-saw-ye-standin-there noises, but Diane didn't really listen; she took the drink from his hand, and then the one in his other hand. Neither one tasted good, but that wasn't the point. She'd got her drink. Time to go. Beyond time.

Of course, there was always one more arsehole.

*

Diane liked the way she could make Mark shut up whenever she wanted. It gave her a sense of power. Not that she needed it; it was just a nice bonus. That and the hash, although, to her mild disappointment, it was the same shite she got from her friend Angie. Local supply. What could you do, being stuck in this grimy wasteland of a city?

She wished so badly she could do what Mark talked about, just move to London. Leave it all behind. Fresh, glittering start.

She looked at him through the smoke, at his thin arms with their tiny junkie scars and his confused face, with the mouth hanging open, preparing to launch another pointless argument about why Simple Minds had been shite since 1985. He wasn't a bad shag, not at all, embarrassingly good even. She didn't like surprises, generally, didn't like being taught new things about herself. He was good with his mouth but didn't make a big deal about it. He seemed to take everything in stride, success and failure both. Mark swam through life, not giving a toss. She liked that about him, and she wanted to be the one to change that at the same time.

She didn't want _him_ , though. She wanted his opportunity. His dream. London. Was it too cliché? Too past-whatever-decade? Who cared, really.

"Play me some Ziggy Pop, then." She stretched on the bed, feeling the sheets moving under her. "Go on. Impress me."

He looked mildly inconvenienced rather than angry. Diane laughed at him. Sweet Mark. She hoped the hash would make his old heroin anthems sound a little less insipid.

*

2006 . Wasted Little DJ's (The View)

 

"Get tae fuck! I'm doin' my face!" Diane slammed the door of the tiny mould-green toilet, cutting off both the shrill Shakira drifting in from the living room and the huffy moans of Calum. The boy was grinding on her last nerve. First the show tickets, or rather the lack of them, and now this, by far the worst part: the endless whining for her to accept his apology. He couldn't even grovel properly. She didn't have the time to hold his hand through life. She had an essay due Monday morning, another essay, and she wanted to get to where the essays were leading so badly. She wanted that degree almost as much as she wanted Calum gone.

So instead of an intriguing indie rock gig she was spending her Saturday night in some miserable house party thrown by a friend of a friend of Calum's, the same friend who called Arctic Monkeys "poet rock" and blogged about the decline of pop music. All his friends seemed to listen to and talk about hit songs with some kind of a grim, obsessive irony that Diane simply couldn't stand. Why not listen to something good for a change, she'd asked. He and Calum had both looked at her like she was an embarrassing little sister crashing their irony party.

Calum had to go. Was gone. While she touched up her eyeliner Diane made the satisfying decision to not go home with him that night. Fuck his convenient parent-sponsored car. Fuck his car stereo that played irony pop for his friends and always, without fail, The Charlatans for her. Just because she'd mentioned them once in a relatively positive context. She didn't even like them that much anymore. She'd hated Up At The Lake. Could a girl not fucking grow and change?

When she opened the door Diane was prepared to meet Calum's sour pus. She saw a grinning girl instead, ages with her probably, hair in dreads threaded with pink. Diane vaguely recognised her as one of the stoners that had brought in the good hash earlier. She was pulling on her jacket. Her lipstick was bright even in the dark corridor, her big teeth brighter.

"We're off tae hunt for some proper sounds," she declared. "Ye comin'?"

"Aye," Diane said. She had already started to look for her own jacket and handbag. "Ah think so."

*

Viv the proper sound hunter took her to another house party, a bigger and more sincere one, filled with cheap bevvy and cheaper drugs and people fighting to play their favourite songs rather than pretend they hated them while they analysed them to death. It wasn't good music, not necessarily, but it was a heavenly choir to Diane because it was the opposite of what Calum would've ever played. The party was full of stoners and mellow junkies but that was fine; at least they cracked a smile occasionally. Diane overdid it on the warm disgusting voddie but Viv just laughed at her performative break-up rage. She could tell Diane was actually having a great time.

Diane found herself squeezed between Viv and some speccy student boy on the comfortable sofa, her top riding up and her stockings riding down, singing along to the song that was playing.

_Craziness kills laziness and happiness takes bad bets  
No one gives a fuck, you see we're all out of our little heads_

Everybody in the flat was singing along. The three girls taking turns gyrating on the creaking table. The loud Scouser in hideous neon orange tights trying not to be sick in the kitchen sink. The pale weed of a junkie under the table, hunched over a notebook, scribbling away but still singing. He looked familiar, somehow; it wasn't before he smiled in recognition that it clicked why. It was a beam of a smile, too good for his face.

"H'lo kitten," he slurred through whatever chemical made his eyelids droop. "Ah mind yis! Renton's bird! Still a cute wee kitten n aw!"

"Hello, Spud," Diane said, smiling because she was happy. She hoped she could remember his real name, if she'd ever learnt it. "Ken this song that's playin'?"

She needed to know the name of the song. Needed to find out before it stopped playing, before the magic dispersed.

Spud looked contemplative for a second, then hunched back over his notebook and started scribbling away while his eyes struggled to stay open.

"Nup. Nivir heard it before in mah puff."

*

2016 . My Way (Calvin Harris)

 

The term "Dropbox" had never felt so apt in Diane's life. She let the two reports fall into the folder and never looked back, her mind already separating from the office set it had been locked in. She toed on her shoes under her desk and wondered if Carly's five-star review of that dim sum place was accurate, or just an assessment of their cheapest lagers. She was starving, for both food and company, and she didn't feel like a drink.

Her phone chimed. Diane glanced at it, and smiled, replying right away. Talk about perfect timing.

Gail had had her hair cut, short and asymmetrical. It suited her. Fergus was with his mates, too big now to join them for a bite out. Diane felt a pang of loss for that. He was a terrific kid, growing up into a sensible, sensitive sort of boy she would've loved to have known when she was his age.

The restaurant was full, but they managed to snag a corner table, so small their knees kept knocking together.

"Cheers, luv," Gail said the first time it happened, and they had a good giggle.

The radio was too loud, though, Diane decided, and playing drone-y electro rubbish.

_Why wait to say_  
_At least I did it my way_  
_Lie awake, two-faced_  
_But in my heart I understand_

Gail had noticed the look on her face. "He wis wi Taylor Swift."

" _Ah've_ been wi her, and so's everybody else by now," Diane snapped, then immediately regretted her vehemence. "Sorry. But what's that to do wi the song? Which is shite, by the way."

Diane admired the elegance of Gail's shrug. She had to take lessons from her, and stop being so argumentative. It was the legal work, that was all; it stuck to her, the need to pinpoint every flaw and weak spot.

They switched to lighter topics, and finished their dim sum in between loud laughter and knowing looks, both of which you could really only swap with someone who knew you well.

*

That night Diane was idly scrolling through news sites when her phone chimed again.

_the charltans brilliant btw. halfwey thru modern nature on itunes, siiiickkkk! cheers for the intro :))))_

Modern Nature. She couldn't remember that one. Still, she was touched that Fergus actually liked some of the bands she'd mentioned to him when he'd wanted to know some "nineties classics". It had made her feel old, yes, but not in a sharp, hurtful way. The distance between then and now stretched out, vast and calm. She accepted it readily.

She found Modern Nature, illegally posted on YouTube, and played it while the news flickered past her, leaving behind scarcely enough material to become coffee break gossip the next day. It wasn't quite brilliant, not to her ear, but it was The Charlatans and it made her smile. She would've hated this album in her twenties, too rigid in her opinions to allow her favourite bands to grow. She was glad she was listening to it now and not then.

Some people really did grow up. Diane thought briefly of Mark, of his face now, how the confusion she remembered had settled in and been accepted as a resident part of his soul.

A quick look at Wikipedia told her Iggy Pop was still alive and well. He was due to release a double live album soon.


End file.
